


Hold Your Hair Back

by Aramley



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-11
Updated: 2010-02-11
Packaged: 2017-12-17 20:02:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aramley/pseuds/Aramley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When Novak gets back to the hotel room at last, he feels so rotten that all he wants to do is pass out on the bed and try to forget that he lost a match and nearly threw up in front of fifteen thousand people in the process.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Set after Novak's defeat in the quarter finals of the 2010 Australian Open.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold Your Hair Back

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://aramleys-words.livejournal.com/9627.html#cutid2).

When Novak gets back to the hotel room at last, he feels so rotten that all he wants to do is pass out on the bed and try to forget that he lost a match and nearly threw up in front of fifteen thousand people in the process. If Marian was here, he'd probably dump a bucket next to the bed and tell him to aim carefully before he let himself out, but Todd is new and probably still a little terrified of Novak's father, and it takes a lot of convincing to get him to go away and let Novak die in peace.

When he's finally, finally drifting off to sleep is when his phone starts to chirp on the beside table, and he swears a blue streak in mixed Serbian and English and snatches it up. He figures it's goddamn Todd, making sure that Novak is still alive.

"Yeah," he snaps. "What? What is it?"

"So, now who is the asshole, hm?"

Novak groans, turning his face into the pillow. "Rafa, isn't it, like, fuck o'clock where you are? Why aren't you asleep?"

"Well," Rafa says. "Mostly because I am outside your hotel room."

Novak rolls onto his back, blinks up at the ceiling. "You're fucking kidding me."

"Not really," Rafa says. "You gonna let me in, or what?"

"If this is a joke, I'm going to end you," Novak warns, hoisting his aching body up from the bed and stumbling over to the door. It has one of those fish-eye peephole things, and when Novak sets his eye to it he only sees the empty hallway. He sighs into the phone. "I don't see you. You're dead."

"Wait," says Rafa, and then sure enough there he is, rolling into sight, distorted by the weird view into nothing much more than a flash of too-bright jacket and a wide, wide grin. "Sorry," he says, and Novak sees his mouth move and hears the muffled sound of his voice through the door even as the words come through the slightly staticky medium of the cellphone. "I was hiding," he adds, which is a stupid, crazy, _Rafa_ thing to say. Novak huffs out a laugh and undoes the locks on the door, swinging it open.

"Hi," Rafa says, smiling, to Novak and into the phone.

"I'm pretty sure we can hang up now," Novak says.

Rafa laughs. "Okay."

He steps inside without being invited, one arm already slung around Novak's neck before Novak even gets the chance to kick the door shut behind him.

"Don't kiss me," he says, curling his own arms around Rafa as Rafa settles his other hand at Novak's waist. A plastic bag dangles from his wrist, rustles where it bumps against Novak's leg. "I'm all - disgusting."

"Yeah," Rafa says, but he draws close, presses his lips gently to Novak's cheek and then again at his temple, soft brushes of affectionate warmth that make Novak duck his head and smile against Rafa's neck, his stomach rolling with something that isn't sickness at all.

"What are you doing here?" he murmurs. "Shouldn't you be, you know, in Spain or somewhere?"

"Come," Rafa says, ignoring the question in favour of giving Novak a gentle push in the direction of the bedroom. "You need rest, no? One time Xisca get sick with the food poisoning. She make me sit in the bathroom and hold her hair back while she throw up."

"Are you telling me," Novak says, staring at Rafa while he's being gently but firmly walked backwards, guided by the slightly distracting pressure of Rafa's hands on his hips, "that you're here to _hold my hair back_ while I puke?"

"Get into bed," Rafa orders, releasing Novak with a sharp pinch to the hip through his thin track bottoms.

"You know, I was already _in_ bed before you came along," Novak grumbles, but he eases himself down onto the bed without further complaint, because seriously, it's where he wants to be right now.

"I brought you things that Xisca had when she was sick," Rafa says, turning away to rummage through his plastic bag.

"If there's a copy of _Cosmo_ in there," Novak warns.

"Xisca no read _Cosmo_ ," Rafa says, snorting derisively. "She read _Expansión_. I bring sports drink, and things for - I forget the word?"

"Rehydrate," Novak says, smiling. "You're sort of sweet sometimes, you know?"

Rafa half-turns from unloading his gifts, smiling. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Novak says, and mostly manages to keep the goofiness out of his voice. "Come sit with me. I'm gonna fall asleep any minute."

Rafa sets the sports drinks and the little packets of rehydration salts on Novak's bedside table within easy reach, and then circles around the bed to settle down next to Novak. Not crowding him, just close enough that Novak can feel him there, a solid, comforting warmth. Rafa lays the flat of his palm to Novak's forehead, the way he remembers his mother doing when he was a kid and sick and miserable, the way he is now.

"You're hot," Rafa murmurs, stroking back through Novak's hair.

Novak lets his eyes fall shut under the touch. "In a sexy way, right?"

"For sure," Rafa says. "Pale and sweaty, yeah. I dunno how I can resist you like this."

"Maybe one day we'll even get to have sex again," Novak says. Lulled by the soft movement of Rafa's fingers against his scalp, he feels himself start to drift, slowly, into sleep. Before he forgets, he reaches out and bumps a hand against Rafa's hip, says, "Sorry I couldn't kick Andy's ass for you."

"Is okay," Rafa says, gently.

"Sorry I'm gross."

"It's okay," Rafa says, with the softness of a smile in his voice. "If you throw up, I promise I hold your hair back."


End file.
